


full heart and other organs

by darlingargents



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Andrew Minyard Has Feelings, Canon-Typical Substance Use/Abuse, Developing Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Pre-Canon, Raven Neil Josten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26364721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/pseuds/darlingargents
Summary: “Riko wants you,” Wesninski says. “Riko always gets what he wants.”Or, a Raven and a Fox can't stop meeting.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 10
Kudos: 209
Collections: We Die Like Fen 4: We Lived to Die Afen





	full heart and other organs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ConvenientAlias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/gifts).



> I had no time for canon review, so let's pretend this is a plausible canon divergence AU and call it a day.

The first time Andrew sees him in person — Raven number three, the most brutal backliner in college exy, who broke his opponent’s collarbone in a game and faced no disciplinary consequences — he’s sitting in the special guest box at a Raven game. It’s a few minutes before the warmups start, and Andrew notices someone by the door to the court. He’s holding his helmet, his red hair and the reflective three on his jersey shining under the floodlights, and he’s looking right at Andrew. This eye contact is a strange thing. Andrew can feel it in his bones.

Nathaniel Wesninski smiles with all his teeth, and puts his helmet on.

Andrew is here, he knows, because the Ravens want him. He’s heard about this: they pluck the high school prodigy out of their place and fly them to Edgar Allen, treating them like a king and showing them how powerful the team is, and ask them to join. Andrew’s sure it has a very impressive success rate for people other than him.

When the game starts, he watches the Ravens pummel their opponents into submission, and after, Riko Moriyama comes up to him, his hair and collar soaked with sweat. He never looks that disheveled in front of the cameras, and Andrew wonders if it’s purposeful. If he’s trying to show Andrew something that looks like honesty.

It’s not very convincing. Andrew’s known for a while that his recruitment skills need work.

“You’re the best goalie in the South,” Riko says, every word enunciated perfectly. Andrew supposes that’s what happens when you grow up in front of a camera. Stumbling or speaking unclearly is unacceptable. “You’re going to be a Raven.”

Andrew looks down at the bag of caramel corn he bought at the concession. He’s pretty sure he stole the money he used for it. “I don’t think so.”

Riko smiles, the corner of his mouth lifting. Andrew thinks they have something in common: their smiles don’t light up their faces. “No one says no to joining my team.”

_ My team _ . Riko isn’t even the captain yet, but it’s true. Andrew knows that as well as he does.

“It’s not easy to make me say yes.”

“I’m not asking.”

Andrew just looks at him for a long moment, and then he stands, balling up the almost-empty bag of caramel corn and throwing it at him. Riko doesn’t move to catch it, and it bounces off his jersey and falls to the floor, a bright spot against the shiny black.

Andrew walks away, and he can feel Riko looking at him every step out of the Raven’s Nest.

*

“I heard you’re the best goalie in the South.”

Andrew’s flight leaves in three hours. He’s having a drink — not an alcoholic one, unfortunately, since he forgot his fake ID — in the hotel lobby while he waits for the shuttle, and he hadn’t expected any company. He looks up, and there’s Wesninski again, no less intimidating off the court. He’s still dressed in all black, the three on his face vivid against his skin. His hair is bright against the collar of his turtleneck, and as Andrew looks at him, he can almost see him in his gear. A mouthguard between his teeth, his hands covered in gloves, the cage of the helmet hiding him away.

His hands, on the stick, are violent weapons. He’s not the best on the field — that honour goes to Day, hands down, which makes their numbering system a little outdated — but for some reason, Andrew had looked at him the most.

“Yes,” Andrew says when he realizes that Wesninski is actually waiting for a response. He smiles when Andrew responds in the affirmative, and slides into the seat next to him. Still at a safe distance, but closing him in, a little bit. Andrew’s not sure he likes the feeling.

“Riko wants you,” Wesninski says. The bartender steps in front of him, and he asks for water without looking. They wait as the bartender scoops ice into a glass and fills it to the brim, topping it with a straw and lemon wedge, and hands it to him. Wesninski takes a sip of the water, and looks back at Andrew. “Riko always gets what he wants.”

“Not everything,” Andrew says mildly. “I know that much.” He met with Kevin Day, at an exy youth event a few months ago. Day is a disaster, a totally nonfunctional human without the constraints of exy around him, and the moment he had the space away from Riko to talk, he had. He’d been drunk enough that Andrew could smell the whiskey escaping his pores, and Riko had been on the other side of the room, and he’d pulled Andrew close and told him stories. Riko’s rejection from the family. His desperation to meet his father’s approval.

The fact that Riko is terrified that Kevin is better than him.

Andrew’s not entirely sure why Kevin laid eyes on him and decided he was trustworthy, but it’s a rare enough occurrence that he’s tempted to just let it be.;

“Are you a man that knows things?” Wesninski asks. “I thought you were just a fresh-out-of-juvie foster kid that knows how to block goals and not much else.”

“That, too,” Andrew says mildy. Wesninski’s words don’t sting at all. He doesn’t use them as insults or weapons, just says them, matter-of-fact. Wesninski is probably not a great intimidater or enforcer. Riko must feel desperate if this is what he’s sent.

“Interesting,” Wesninski says. “I don’t know what he sees in you, but I had to try. Best of luck, Minyard.”

Andrew isn’t even aware of making the decision to grab Wesninski’s wrist, but a moment later his hand is there and Wesninski has stopped, halfway out of his seat. Andrew can feel his pulse, slow and steady as a metronome under his fingers. Wesninski is anything but afraid.

“I’m joining the Foxes,” Andrew says, and Wesninski laughs, astonished and pitying all at once.

“You won’t win a single game. Are you insane?”

“I don’t know.” Wesninski’s hair has fallen in his eyes. He’s not adjusting it, just looking at Andrew, smiling ever so slightly. Andrew’s stomach does something uncomfortable. “But I’m not joining your death cult.”

Wesninski’s smile falls off his face, and Andrew lets go of his wrist and looks away. He counts to two hundred before he lets himself look up again. Wesninski is long gone.

*

Wesninski comes to his first game. Andrew sees him in the front row, all black in a sea of orange. Wymack sees him too, and mutters something about the goddamn Ravens sending their enforcers to everything. Andrew ignores him, and just watches.

Wesninski hasn’t spotted him yet. He’s not on his phone, not talking to anyone, not even nursing a fountain drink from the concession. He’s just watching the court, staring at it, like there’s nowhere he’d rather be.

A moment later, he glances away and locks eyes with Andrew. Andrew holds his gaze for a moment, and nods.

Wesninski smiles slightly, and leans back in his seat.

The first half of the game, Renee lets in six goals. In Andrew’s half, he lets in none. They still lose, three-six, Seth throwing a punch and getting red-carded, but Andrew doesn’t care. When the final buzzer goes up, he looks up and finds Wesninski in the stands.

Wesninski is still smiling.

*

“You could do so much better with us,” Wesninski says. Andrew doesn’t bother asking how he found him, hours after and cities away from the game. He’s nursing a beer while Nicky and Aaron are dancing, and contemplating taking Roland out back for a blowjob that he would spend repressing the image of red hair and the palest blue eyes he’s ever seen.

“I have people to take care of,” Andrew says, which is more honest than he probably should be. He can blame the alcohol and cracker dust clouding his head, if he needs to justify it to himself in the morning.

“Oh, is that what it’s about?” Wesninski slides into the booth next to him without asking, and Andrew moves over to make room. Their knees brush under the table. “The brother and the cousin? That’s surprising. Conventional wisdom is that you are entirely emotionless.”

“Conventional wisdom is often off-base.”

“In this case?”

The lights above them are strobing, and a headache is starting up in Andrew’s head. He wants a cigarette, to go outside and breathe in the sticky-hot air that at least doesn’t taste like sweat, booze, and vomit. He wants a blowjob. Maybe he wants to sleep.

He wants to leave a bruise on Wesninski’s neck.

“You tell me.” The beer isn’t strong enough. Somewhere on the table is a full shot glass of tequila, and he fumbles around until he finds one, along with a lime that was already sitting in a puddle of liquor.

“Planning on sharing?” Wesninski asks. Andrew takes the shot and bites down on the lime, blinking back the stinging harshness of the alcohol. He sucks the lime dry and tosses it aside. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“Your observational skills are impressive as always.”

Wesninski laughs, short and bright, and Andrew gets the sense that he startled it out of him. It’s slightly gratifying, and the sound is… nicer than he expected. He waves down a bartender — someone new, so he doesn’t know them — and gestures to Wesninski.

“Whatever he wants,” he says. “Still on me.”

“I can pay,” Wesninski says. “Just a beer, please.”

“Four more shots,” Andrew adds, and the bartender vanishes. “You’re my guest,” he says.

“Really.”

“You came to my game and my club.”

“Your club?” Wesninski glances around. “You seem a little young to have your own.”

Andrew rolls his eyes. Their drinks arrive, and he pushes two shots in front of Wesninski along with his beer.

“On me,” he says, and Wesninski rolls his eyes and takes the first shot, sliding the lime between his teeth a moment later with practiced ease. Andrew wonders how many late-night drinking sessions he’s had with Day. If there were any deep feelings or thoughts exchanged. He doubts it, somewhat. A general air of misery seems more likely.

Andrew takes his own shot, and then a second after a quick bite of the first lime. Wesninski takes his second shot, and pushes the glasses aside, taking a sip of his beer. Andrew might be a little more buzzed, now. A little more likely to make bad decisions

Like buying drinks for a Raven. Like letting a Raven look at him this way.

Speaking of which, he can’t help but notice the way Wesninski keeps looking at his lips. And he can’t stop himself from looking back, at the shine of liquor smeared on Wesninski’s bottom lip, at the way the lights play across his fingers on the table.

“Where are you staying?” Andrew asks, knowing it’s a bad idea before he even says it. Wesninski glances at him, putting down his barely touched glass of beer.

“Back by the university. I’ll take a cab.”

“I have a house here,” Andrew says, and he’s sure that the shock that plays across Wesninski’s face and immediately vanishes is real. “Ten minutes away.”

For once, Wesninski seems to be at a loss for words. “What about your brother and cousin?”

“They’ll find their way back. And they won’t care.”

“Sure,” Wesninski says, and Andrew thinks they’re about equally surprised at his acceptance.

*

Wesninski offers to drive. Andrew laughs in his face. He may have had more to drink, but Wesninski is not going to touch his car. It’s a short drive, anyway, and no one else is around at three on a Saturday morning in Columbus.

The house is dark and quiet when they pull up, and Wesninski doesn’t say anything as Andrew unlocks it and goes inside. He turns on lights as he goes through the house, and checks the freezer when he gets to the kitchen. No one ate the last of the gallon container of chocolate ice cream, so he takes it out and grabs a spoon, as well.

Wesninski watches him from the door of the kitchen as he leans against the counter and takes a few bites. “Sweet tooth?” he asks, and Andrew shrugs.

“Rather not go to bed on an empty stomach.”

Wesninski nods, and then reaches past Andrew and into the open cutlery drawer, withdrawing his own spoon. Andrew watches as he takes a spoonful and eats it.

“You’re not the best houseguest,” Andrew says as Wesninski goes back for a second bite. He shrugs.

“You’re the host eating ice cream in front of me.”

He does have a point. Andrew takes a couple more bites, lets Wesninski dig out one last chunk, and puts the ice cream away. He’s already starting to sober up, and he’s desperately tired. “You can sleep on the couch. We passed the living room on the way in. Bathroom’s at the end of the hall, sheets and pillows are in the closet. Night.”

He goes to leave the kitchen, and Wesninski catches his wrist. Before he can ask any questions, Wesninski’s mouth is on his.

It tastes like tequila and lime and chocolate, and his lips are still cold from the ice cream. Andrew stays perfectly still for a long moment, and Wesninski pulls back.

“Was that a no?”

Andrew pulls his wrist out of Wesninski’s loose grip, and leaves without responding. He doesn’t let himself think about Wesninski in the moments between getting in bed and falling asleep.

*

When Andrew wakes up at sometime past noon, with a pounding headache and a dry mouth begging for water, Aaron and Nicky are already home. He can hear Nicky downstairs, on the phone with Erik, and when he gets out of bed and heads for a shower, Andrew’s door is shut.

He doesn’t remember their guest until he’s drying off, and when he does, his heart skips a beat. He dresses as fast as he can and heads downstairs, almost a bit panicked about what Nicky will say, and—

“You fucking left us there, you asshole.” A towel flies at him as he steps into the kitchen. Nicky is making breakfast: an omelette that’s just eggs and pre-shredded cheese. And only enough for himself. “I had to call a cab and I swear to god, if I’d been hate crimed because you left me with your brother at a club at two in the morning, you’d be hearing about it for years.”

“You weren’t, though.”

“But I could’ve been!” Nicky slides the omelette onto a plate, and sprinkles on some pepper. It looks a bit sad. Nicky doesn’t seem worried about the random Raven on their couch, so Andrew ducks back out, and—

Wesninski is gone. The couch is back in place, mostly, the linens piled up on the far side where Nicky wouldn’t have seen it this morning. When Andrew goes to pick them up, a piece of paper falls out, and he grabs it.

_ I’d love to play on your team someday, Andrew. _

_ Thanks for the drinks and everything else. _

_ -N _

_ (PS: I go by Neil to my friends.) _

Neil. It suits him.

Andrew folds up the paper and shoves it in his pocket, and grabs the pile of sheets to sneak them into the laundry. Nicky won’t notice, and Aaron won’t care. They’ll probably never realize they shared a house with a Raven for the night.

_ I go by Neil to my friends. _

Andrew can still remember the taste of his lips.


End file.
